The Sweet East might go undetected in the box office this Easter break, but it's a gem worth discovering for those brave enough to tag along for the ride.
A surrealist and wildly entertaining journey into a Wonderland-like America, the movie is a living present-day fresco of extreme ideologies, extravagant personalities and absurd behaviours coexisting on the east coast of the United States.
It looks like a blend of a '70s rock documentary (such as Michael Wadleigh's Woodstock) and a John Cassavetes film, and yet it feels terribly contemporary, as a young woman's directionless life becomes a portrait of a confused generation.
She's an Alice in Wonderland wandering through an insane ideological climate that she couldn't care less about.
Starring Talia Ryder (Never Rarely Sometimes Always), The Sweet East follows Lillian, a young woman from South Carolina who decides to dump her high-school mates during a trip to Washington DC and go in search of more exciting experiences.
After wandering around the city, she joins a community of starving artists who are planning to disrupt a neo-Nazi meeting. That leads her to become housemates with a sexually-repressed far-right intellectual (Red Rocket's Simon Rex) caught up in some dangerous business, becoming a movie star for a budding film director (Ayo Edebiri) and being held captive (for her own security) in a secret forest community of gay muslims.
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Ryder is amazing as an apathetic teenager who is not at all looking for her way back home. She seems to feel more at ease as an alienated presence happy to disrupt highly excitable ideological communes in her search for... Meaning? Purpose? Nothing at all?
What is amazing about this directorial debut of Sean Price Williams (who has worked for more than two decades as a cinematographer on films like the Robert Pattinson-starring Good Time) is how free and unconstrained it feels.
The movie is happy to get lost in recognisable spaces of our modern-day culture without a clear destination. This might prove testing for viewers expecting more action, but the best way to enjoy this movie is to just let the retro aesthetics and absurdist comedy of the film wash over you.
That immersion is possible thanks to some standout performances, including Ayo Edebiri's annoyingly excitable film-student-turned-director making a movie in New York.
In one scene, she asks Lillian to read some lines of the script in order to cast her in the movie, and her reactions are priceless, and improvised, too. Similar to some scenes of the excellent teenage comedy Bottoms, The Bear star knows how to inject comedy on the spot.
Jacob Elordi is barely there, unfortunately, so stealing his spotlight is Simon Rex, who unexpectedly becomes the strongest emotional component of the film.
He is so gullible, so clueless about Lilian's manipulation that, for a moment, we even feel sorry for him. Then we remember he's a white supremacist, and we're over it, but that duality is a testament to Rex's great performance and the richness of the movie.
Moving through opposites that define our current society (cynicism and civility, ideological anarchy and hope) and finding warmth in the unlikeliest of places, The Sweet East is an imaginative and magical road movie that shouldn't fly under the radar.
It won't lead the box office charts or make headlines this weekend, yet it might prove a transformative experience for those willing to give it a chance.
The Sweet East is now out in UK cinemas.
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Mireia (she/her) has been working as a movie and TV journalist for over eight years. Based in the UK, she is a former deputy movies editor at Digital Spy, and previously worked for the Spanish magazine Fotogramas. Mireia's work has been published in other outlets such as Esquire and Elle in Spain, and WeLoveCinema and GamesRadar+ in the UK. She is also a published author, having written the essay Biblioteca Studio Ghibli: Nicky, la aprendiz de bruja about Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service.
During her years as a freelance journalist and film critic, Mireia has covered festivals around the world and has interviewed high-profile talents such as Kristen Stewart, Ryan Gosling, Jake Gyllenhaal and many more. She's also taken part in juries such as the FIPRESCI jury at Venice Film Festival and the short film jury at Kingston International Film Festival in London. LinkedIn
